John Lyman - The Secret Chapel

John breathed in the musty aroma. “It’s hard to believe actual miracles and angelic visions have occurred here, right where we’re standing now.” He touched the wall outside the cell and conjured images of what the scene inside must have been like then.

Morelli took out a map and looked up and down the empty passageway. “Speaking of miracles, it will be a miracle if we can find that tunnel. It’s probably been sealed off somewhere behind the thick outside wall for hundreds of years, if not longer.”

Many of Rome’s buildings had ancient ruins for basements. Restaurants and private homes used them for wine cellars, and many still had original Roman frescos covering the walls. The whole city was honeycombed beneath with interconnecting tunnels, most of which had been blocked off for security reasons.

A voice punctuated the darkness behind them. “Can I help you, Fathers?”

The three men froze in place before slowly turning to face a weathered-looking man holding a broom. The man had a kind face with wide eyes and a perpetual smile.

“Yes,” Leo said. “We’re looking for a tunnel that runs west from here to the Vatican.”

The other two turned and stared at Leo with their mouths gaping open. What was he thinking? He had just given away their plan, and it was only a matter of time before they would be escorted out of the building by security or, worse, arrested. Italian jailhouse cuisine was one step closer to becoming a reality.

“Oh, the tunnel,” the man said. “Come with me, Fathers.”

Morelli leaned over and whispered in Leo’s ear as they followed behind. “You’re either crazy, lucky, or brilliant. I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

“Neither,” Leo whispered back. “I don’t think that janitor is part of some grand conspiracy to keep us from discovering an ancient chapel. He’s just a working class man who enjoys helping people, especially priests. Anyway, at this point, what have we got to lose?”

The man led them down the brick hallway to a freshly excavated area cordoned off with yellow construction tape. Beyond the barrier, a seemingly endless dark tunnel stretched out before them.

The man paused to light a cigarette. “The archaeologists who were here yesterday dug away this wall and found the tunnel.”

A sudden chill ran down Morelli’s spine.

The janitor took a deep puff and exhaled the smoke. “They didn’t want to go any further until they had a map of the catacombs. The priest in charge told me that some other priests from the Vatican would be coming back with a map. Are you the ones with the map? We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow.”

“Did the archaeologists who found this tunnel mention who they were working for?” Morelli asked.

“Yes, they were priests, just like you, Father. They work at the Vatican. Don’t you work for the Vatican?” The man’s perpetual smile was beginning to fade.

Morelli took the man by the arm. “Yes, of course, my friend. We just have so many people working on so many projects, we can’t keep them all straight. We had some extra time today and wanted to see the tunnel for ourselves.” Morelli sighed with the knowledge that he would be admitting to these lies in his next confession.

The man’s smile returned as Leo glanced in the direction of the tunnel and winked at Morelli. “We might as well check out the area while we’re here, Father.”

“Yes, we have to be at another project tomorrow. We’ll just survey the tunnel right now to make sure it’s the right one and report our findings back to the Vatican.”

The man looked bored. “ Molto bene , Fathers. Mi scusi , but I must finish with my duties.” With his cigarette dangling from his lips, he hefted the broom across his shoulder and walked off down the hallway. As soon as he rounded the corner, the three began to breathe normally again.

Stepping over the yellow tape, they noticed several lanterns and large flashlights in boxes and shovels and pickaxes stacked against the wall. Gathering up flashlights, a lantern, and a pickax, the men made a last check of the empty hallway before entering the tunnel.

“What if he tells someone we’re down here?” John said, turning his head to look back over his shoulder.

“I’m more worried about the people who uncovered this tunnel,” Morelli said. “As the chief of Vatican archaeology, I think I would have known about a group of ‘archaeologist priests’ from the Vatican doing an excavation under Mamertine Prison. Whoever they are, they aren’t from my department.”

Morelli’s fear of an evil conspiracy now seemed closer to reality as Leo peered ahead into the darkness of the tunnel. “This just keeps getting stranger by the minute. Do you think they’re looking for the same thing we are, Anthony?”

“Yes, and that makes me even more anxious to get into that deeper area and find the seal. There’s only one explanation for them using this tunnel to access the catacombs beneath the necropolis, and that’s secrecy.”

Leo felt a twinge of fear as they began moving cautiously into the maze of catacombs that snaked beneath the city. All three men were well aware of the stories of people actually getting lost and dying in these ancient subterranean graveyards.

The tunnel had obviously been sealed off for centuries. Debris littered the hard-packed earthen floor. It consisted mostly of plaster that had once been used to seal ancient tombs, rocks from minor cave-ins, and, disturbingly, human and animal bones. The animal bones were left over from feasts held long ago in the catacombs by family and friends who came to honor their dead, while the human bones were the result of grave robber activity over the years. The tunnel was otherwise in surprisingly good shape for its age, probably dating to around AD 100.

“How far do you think it is to the area beneath the Basilica?” John asked.

Morelli shined his light ahead. “About a mile. Of course, it seems farther when you’re underground.”

The men trudged forward through the maze, coughing now and then in the fetid air saturated with carbon dioxide. For the next hour and a half, they trekked through the dark labyrinth, crossing intersecting tunnels and trying to stay on a straight course to the Vatican. Morelli produced a thick piece of yellow chalk and began to mark the walls with an arrow when they passed an intersecting tunnel. He wanted to provide them with a sign if they got lost or accidentally doubled back in the maze.

John had tried in the past to use GPS to locate positions under the Vatican, but the device never seemed to work this far underground. The only way they would know when they had arrived at the area below the Basilica was their knowledge of the site.

The men were becoming exhausted from the long walk in the stale air, but the prospect of discovery pushed them on. After climbing and descending a series of steps, they rounded a slight curve and entered a large open area that rose almost twenty feet above their heads.

Morelli shined his light on a sloping pile of rubble that tumbled down from a newly constructed wall above. “There. That’s the wall Emilio had built to keep me out. We are now directly under the Basilica. This is the area we first entered a few months ago after a workman’s shovel pushed through into this section of the catacombs by accident. This site is definitely Christian, not pagan. The ancient Christians probably inhabited it when they were still being persecuted by the Romans. They hid from their persecutors down here and prayed together. This area must have been dug out around the time of Nero, the mad emperor who burned down half of Rome.”

Leaning on his pickax, John shined his light around at the crumbling red-and-white-colored plaster that still covered several of the intact tombs. “We’ve already checked out most of this area, Father. Where do you want to start?”